John Rudolph (OV) reporting...


Mine might be a little short and boring but here it is anyway:
I was working as a 15 yo dishwasher on a work permit at a romanian
restaurant and had just started playing bass guitar (Sweet was the band that
got me started).  I can remember back then that all of my friends in the
'burbs of Detroit were starting to get into Sweet.  Even my friend was
drawing images of Sweet onstage at that time, and even wanted to paint a
cool Sweet Logo in our school cafeteria but the school instead opted for a
mural of the Beatles!

Anyway, one day as I was washing the dishes, my co-worker came up to me and
said that Sweet was coming to the Masonic Auditorium for a show in Detroit
and he wanted to know if I was going or not.  I said I'd kill to go, so he
offered me a ticket but wanted $30 from me since he was scalping the
tickets.  I remember that I couldn't afford it right away so he said that
he'd give me the ticket and that I could pay him later.

A week went by and the big day was fast approaching.  My co-worker came up
to me and said for me to have a look at the schedule.  "One of us has to
stay here, and since I'm going with my friends, that means you have to stay
here and wash dishes because you're on the schedule."  The fat bastard
snickered at me, and I was to later find out that he "manipulated" the
schedule so that I'd be working that night.  The next day, he kept on
telling me how cool Sweet was, and that it was too bad I never got to see
the show.

I'll never forget that, as long as I live.  I washed dishes on the night of
seeing the concert of a lifetime.  My dream band!  I would NEVER ever get to
see Sweet in concert!  But I got revenge.  I bought two tickets a couple of
months later to catch Cheap Trick and Kiss together at Cobo Arena in
Detroit.  My co-worker followed suit.  He once again tried pulling the stunt
he did on me with the Sweet concert by adjusting the schedule so I would
have to work again.

Terribly sorry for what happened that night, but me and my girlfriend went
to the show, 5th row center, and I quit the job.  I would never stand a job
ever again if it meant that I would miss out on ANY concert from that day
forward!  And my co-worker actually stayed to wash dishes -- but they paid
him double time to come in on a non-scheduled night!  They begged me to
return and would forget that I blew the schedule, but I never went back in
there.  I ended up flipping burgers at McDonald's.